permanent damage.”
“Without having their bones actually turn to rubber, I grant. I don't concede there was no more subtle damage done. I'm no biophysicist, I just believe the tables; they were worked out on the basis of knowledge gained the hard way. I admit they have a big safety factor, and if you consider it really necessary I won't object to staying out for four or five days. But you haven't given us any idea so far why this should be considered an emergency situation.”
“Hmmm. So I haven't. All right, will you stay out long enough to show Brenda and me how to work the locks below, so we can get the stuff inside?”
“Why — of course — if it's that important we'll stay and do the work too. But I didn't…' Silbert fell silent as it dawned on him that Weisanen's choice of words meant that he had no intention of explaining just yet what the “emergency” was. Both newcomers must have read the spaceman's mind quite accurately at that point, since even Bresnahan was able to, but neither of them said anything.
Conversation for the next few minutes consisted entirely of Silbert's instructions for shoving off in the proper direction to reach Raindrop, and how to walk on its not-quite-zero-gravity, jelly-like surface after they reached it. The trip itself was made without incident.
Because fast movement on the surface was impossible, several hours were spent collecting the scattered bundles and stacking them by the lock. The material could not be placed inside, as most of it had to be assembled before it could go under water; so for the moment the lesson in lock management was postponed. Weisanen, after some hesitation, agreed to Silbert's second request that they return to the station for food and rest. He and his wife watched with interest the technique of getting back to it.
With four people instead of two, the velocity-matching problem might have been worse, but this turned out not to be the case. Silbert wondered whether it were strictly luck, or whether the Weisanens actually had the skill to plan their jumps properly. He was beginning to suspect that both of them had had previous space experience, and both were certainly well-coordinated physical specimens.
According to the tables which had been guiding Silbert's life, the party should have remained in the high- weight part of the station for at least eighty hours after their session of zero-gee, but his life was now being run by Weisanen rather than the tables. The group was back on the water twelve hours after leaving it.
Bresnahan still had his feeling of discomfort, with star-studded emptiness on one side and its reflection on the other, but he was given little time to brood about it.
The first material to go into the lock consisted of half a dozen yard-wide plastic bubbles of water. Silbert noted with interest that all contained animal life, ranging from barely visible crustacea to herring-sized fish.
“So we're starting animal life here at last,” remarked the spaceman. “I thought it was a major bone of contention whether we ever would.”
“The question was settled at the first meeting of the new board,” replied Weisanen. “Life forms able to live here — or presumably able to live here — have been ready for several years. Please be careful in putting those in the lock — just the odd-numbered ones first, please. The evens contain predators, and the others should be given a few hours to scatter before they are turned loose.”
“Right. Any special techniques for opening? Or just get the bubbles through the second lock and cut them open?”
“That will do. I assume that a few hours in the currents inside, plus their own swimming abilities, will scatter them through a good part of the drop.”
“It should. I suppose they'll tend to stay pretty close to the skin because of the light; I trust they can take a certain amount of hard radiation.”
“That matter has been considered. There will be some loss, damage, and genetic change, of course, but we think the cultures will gain in spite of that. If they change, it is no great matter. We expect rapid evolution in an environment like this, of course. It's certainly been happening so far.”
Bresnahan helped push the proper spheres into the lock at the vacuum end and out of it at the other, and watched with interest as each was punctured with a knife and squeezed to expel the contents.
“I should have asked about waiting for temperatures to match,” remarked Silbert as the cloud of barely visible, jerkily moving specks spread from the last of the containers, “but it doesn't seem to be bothering them.”
“The containers were lying on Raindrop's surface all night, and the satellite is in radiative equilibrium,” pointed out Bresnahan. “The temperatures shouldn't be very different anyway. Let's get back outside and see what's going on next. Either these water-bugs are all right, or they're beyond our help.”
“Right.” Silbert followed the suggestion, and the newly released animals were left to their own devices.
Outside, another job was under way. The largest single items of cargo had been a set of curved segments of metal, apparently blue-anodized aluminum. In the few minutes that Silbert and Bresnahan had been inside, the Weisanens had sorted these out from the rest of the material and were now fitting them together.
Each section attached to its neighbor by a set of positive-acting snap fasteners which could be set almost instantly, and within a very few minutes it became evident that they formed a sphere some twenty feet in diameter. A transparent dome of smaller radius was set in one pole, and a cylindrical structure with trap doors in the flat ends marked the other. With the assembly complete, the Weisanens carefully sprayed everything, inside and out, from cylinders which Silbert recognized as containing one of the standard fluorocarbon polymers used for sealing unfindable leaks in space ships.
Then both Weisanens went inside.
Either the metallic appearance of the sphere was deceptive or there were antennae concealed in its structure, because orders came through the wall on the suit-radio frequency without noticeable loss. In response to these, Bresnahan and the spaceman began handing the rest of the equipment in through the cylindrical structure, which had now revealed itself as a minute air lock. As each item was received it was snapped down on a spot evidently prepared to receive it, and in less than two hours almost all the loose gear had vanished from the vicinity of Raindrop's entry lock. The little that was left also found a home as Weisanen emerged once more and fastened it to racks on the sphere's outer surface, clustered around the air lock.
The official went back inside, and, at his orders, Silbert and the computerman lifted the whole sphere onto the top of the cylindrical cargo lock of the satellite. Either could have handled the three-pound weight alone, but its shape and size made it awkward to handle and both men felt that it would be inadvisable to roll it.
“Good. Now open this big hatch and let us settle into the lock chamber,” directed Weisanen. “Then close up, and let in the water.”
It was the first time Silbert had caught his boss in a slip, and he was disproportionately pleased. The hatch opened outward, and it was necessary to lift the sphere off again before the order could be obeyed.
Once it was open, the two men had no trouble tossing the big globe into the yawning, nearly dark hole — the sun was just rising locally and did not shine into the chamber — but they had to wait over a minute for Raindrop's feeble gravity to drag the machine entirely inside. They could not push it any faster, because it was not possible to get a good grip on sphere and lock edge simultaneously; and pushing down on the sphere without good anchorage would have done much more to the pusher than to the sphere.
However, it was finally possible to close the big trap. After making sure that it was tightly latched — it was seldom used, and Silbert did not trust its mechanism unreservedly — he and Bresnahan entered the lock through the smaller portal.
“Aren't there special suits for use inside Raindrop, a lot more comfortable than this space armor?” asked Weisanen.
“Yes, sir,” replied the spaceman, “though the relative comfort is a matter of opinion. There are only three, and two of them haven't been used since I came. They'll need a careful checkout.”
“All right. Bring them in here, and then let the water into this lock.” Silbert found the suits and handed them to Bresnahan to carry out the first part of the order, while he went to the controls to execute the second.
“All ready?” he asked.
“All set. Both lock doors here are shut, and the three of us are inside. Let the flood descend.”
“Wrong verb,” muttered Silbert to himself.
He very cautiously cracked the main inner hatch; opening it would have been asking for disaster. Even at a mere quarter atmosphere's pressure the wall of water would have slammed into the evacuated lock violently
